Ghosts of Game 6 Favor the Knicks, but They’re Old, Too

Reggie Miller rose from his broadcaster’s seat late Thursday night, resplendent in a dark gray suit, and smiled at the familiar sight of a reporter whose deadline playoff stories he had helped rewrite almost two decades ago.

But there was a flip side to the classic Knicks-Pacers playoff battles of the mid-1990s often remembered for Miller’s shooting heroics that tormented Spike Lee and deflated Madison Square Garden. The Knicks broke a few hearts in Indianapolis, as well, in consecutive years going into the old Market Square Arena and staving off Game 6 elimination.

Upon mention of 1994 and 1995, Miller knew where the conversation was headed after the Knicks clung to postseason life by winning Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal, 85-75.

“It was a house money game tonight for the Pacers,” he said. “But now all the pressure shifts back to them, going home, because you’re expected to close them out there. Not easy for a young team against a group of veterans.”

The arena — Bankers Life Fieldhouse — will be different, but the challenge will be the same for Carmelo Anthony’s Knicks as it was for Patrick Ewing’s: turn an expectant crowd nervous, along with the Pacers, by not allowing them to take control of a game early, as the Pacers most recently did in Games 3 and 4.

On June 1, 1994, the legend of Miller was born on Broadway when he scored 25 fourth-quarter points, including five 3-pointers, one deeper than the last, to send Indiana home with a chance to close out the Eastern Conference finals.

Two nights later, on a humid Friday night, Market Square Arena was packed and stoked to watch the Pacers advance to their first N.B.A. finals.

The arena, which opened in 1974 and was demolished in 2001, had an interior configuration that was more like a college arena’s. It was loud and usually raucous, in a time when the Pacers had a more rabid fan base that carried over from their American Basketball Association days.

At Bankers Life, the Pacers this season ranked 25th of 30 teams in attendance, averaging 15,269 in an arena that holds 18,165. Game 4 was announced as a sellout but there were several pockets of empty seats.

“I was in the new arena for Games 3 and 4 this year, and I can tell you it’s not the same type of atmosphere that it was in Market Square,” the former Knicks guard John Starks said. “That place was much louder, a lot more tense. It was hostile.”

Photo

Reggie Miller said this year's Pacers should want to avoid a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden, unlike his Indiana team was able to do in 1994.Credit
Michael Conroy/Associated Press

But in Game 6 of the next season, playing on a knee that had been surgically repaired two months earlier, Starks poured in 26 points. He converted 5 of 6 from behind the 3-point line in a 98-91 victory. Ewing’s put-back of a missed Starks driving layup clinched Game 7 in New York. But in Coach Pat Riley’s heart, Starks endeared himself by getting the Knicks home in the first place, and that best explained why Riley would not pull the plug on Starks even as he shot 2 for 18 in a crushing Game 7 defeat at Houston in the finals.

In 1995, the Pacers held a 3-1 series lead in the second round but the Knicks won a close game at home and returned to Market Square, where by then they were Indiana’s most despised opponent. Some fans around the visitors’ bench were profane and, in the opinion of some Knicks, borderline racist.

Even Dancing Harry, who had cast hexes on Knicks opponents during their 1970s championship days at the Garden, resurfaced as a cape-wearing turncoat in the employ of the Pacers.

“I guess it was the style of play, too,” Starks said. “It was really physical, and it brought out the passion.”

On May 19, 1995, Ewing’s 25 points and 15 rebounds led the Knicks to a 92-82 Game 6 victory. But back in New York, his endgame finger-roll rimmed out, Miller kissed the Garden floor and the Riley era came to a close.

Starks included the consecutive Game 6 victories in Indianapolis among the highlights of his career.

“Oh, that was the best, to hear that place go so quiet,” he said.

Of course, those Knicks, fueled by Riley — who by then had won four titles as the Lakers coach — were a physical, ornery bunch. The 2012-13 Knicks won 54 games largely on the strength of their jump-shooting.

Still, as Starks said: “Most of the season, in their darkest hour, they seem to have risen to the occasion. And the psychology changes now. The Pacers start thinking, ‘Oh, no, we don’t want to go back to New York for 7.’ ”

Added to the possible loss of point guard George Hill for the remainder of the series, the Pacers still must consider the possibility that Anthony and J. R. Smith could erupt simultaneously.

“Even tonight they didn’t shoot the ball particularly great,” Miller said after Game 5, in which the Knicks made 41 percent of their shots. “But they got some second shots, Chris Copeland was great off the bench. So if I’m Frank Vogel I’m a little worried because the Knicks are due to have that kind of night where they are making 3s from all over the place.”

Speaking from the painful experience of having twice lost a closeout Game 6 at home, he added, “If that happens, it’s a whole different story.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 18, 2013, on page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: Ghosts of Game 6 Favor the Knicks, but They’re Old, Too. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe